Moscow & Cambridge, 2nd February, 2004 - Proteom Ltd, an in silico molecular design company, and ASINEX Ltd, a worldwide leader in lead generation and lead optimization, today announced the completion of a successful bioscreening project.

Proteom used their proprietary computational screening technology, ProtoScreen™, to identify potential ligands to a protein kinase target from a variety of commercially available compound collections. A small subset of these compounds was sent to ASINEX for laboratory screening in ASINEX’s bioscreening department. A very high ‘hit rate’ was found during the screens and Proteom are now in the process of selecting compounds for a second screening project with ASINEX.

Dr Bill Hamilton, Chief Operating Officer at Proteom stated, "We are very pleased with the outcome of this study both in terms of speed of completion and quality of results. This project clearly demonstrates the considerable potential of Proteom’s virtual screening technology, ProtoScreen™, to rapidly identify novel hits with biological activity."

Dr Anna Kilimnik, Deputy Head of BioScreening at ASINEX commented, "We are delighted with the results of this project. It is a new venture for ASINEX to use our bioscreening department on a purely service basis. It shows that we are able to offer a very wide range of drug discovery services, and also helps to validate ASINEX’s biological capabilities."

About ASINEX

ASINEX (www.asinex.com) is a full-service chemistry provider of 'Intelligent Chemistry` for the lead generation and optimization stage of drug discovery. Well known as a supplier of diverse, small molecule libraries for screening and building blocks for combinatorial chemistry, ASINEX has developed a reputation for cost-effective and efficient Lead Optimization, Custom Synthesis and Focused Library Generation. Based in Moscow, with a total of 111 chemists (48 Ph.D.), 8 computational chemists (6 Ph.D.) and 30 biologists (20 Ph.D.), ASINEX is a powerful drug discovery resource. For further information about ASINEX, please contact:

ASINEX Ltd
Alistair Melvin
Business Development Officer
Tel: (00)7 495 780 3411
Fax: (00)7 495 780 3419
Email: amelvin@asinex.com

About Proteom Ltd

Proteom Ltd is Cambridge (UK)-based biotechnology company specializing in the in silico design of small molecule ligands. The Company’s state-of-the-art technology platform includes ProtoBuild^TM, a de novo design application, and ProtoScreen^TM, a virtual screening tool. Proteom currently provides in silico design/screening services to companies requiring cutting edge computational design capabilities for their drug discovery programs. For further information about Proteom, please contact:

Proteom Ltd
William Hamilton, Ph.D.
Chief Operating Officer
Tel: +44 (0)1223 496180
Fax: +44 (0)1223 496181
Email: wdohamilton@proteom.com